Hi .. trying to remotely diagnose a clutch problem on daughters Corsa D
2009 car seems all was well driving normally then the clutch stopped working very abruptly!
I'd have thought it was a clutch cable become broken but it seems it might be nasty with a slave cylinder that apparently costs a fortune to fix!, so anyone know if a model of that year was cable or hydraulic operated?
An eBay search brings up bazillions of cables, but no slave cylinders. Purely based on the fact that it?s a ?base model? vehicle (from 11 years ago) I?d go for it being a cable operated clutch.
Many cars now use the brake master cylinder reservoir to feed the clutch master cylinder via a short tube.
The Corsa D master cylinder is under the dash. There is nothing much to see in the engine bay other than 2 tubes to a bulkhead connector.
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Seems it was available with a MTA, which has some other fail modes - like if it gets too hot.
First thing would be to check brake fluid level and top up if low. The feed to the clutch is on the side of the reservoir so it can't drain the brakes but can be high and dry. Seems you depress the pedal, open the bleed valve and just let fluid drain though, no pumping of pedal and pressure bleeders will pop the slave cylinder seal.
Then look for the leak but it may just be brake and clutch pistons all being extended dropping the level in the reservoir.
Check for fluid under dash - master cylinder is cheap and fairly easy. Check for fluid weeping from transmission - slave is PITA.
How to make a £150 job cost £750. If the slave is leaking you most likely need a new DMF and clutch kit as well. Simple old fashioned external slave leaking wouldn't get fluid to the plate and rubber in DMF. But a pivot and arm costs money, which would make the car cost £50-£100 more in the showroom. If they can save £50 on the "lifetime" cost of first three years for fleet buyers they will do it even if it costs the 3rd/4th user that can't afford it £1,000. If it was RWD where the gearbox just falls out it wouldn't be too bad but FWD means drive shafts have to come out, which means front suspension has to have lower ball joints split to move hubs outwards off splines, brakes have to be removed as hoses don't stretch.
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11 years old is a bit early for it to go to the scrap yard. Typically cars are scraped at around 14 years old in UK, so is it worth it for 3 more years?
Get an EV, won't have a transmission, wont have cam belts or chains, won't have an emissions system that feeds exhaust into the intake filling the intake system with carbon. Shouldn't be getting scrapped for simple £75 part failure that costs £750 to fix like ICE cars.
Ford have put cam belt on on the clutch end of the 2012 1L ecoboost engine. 10 years or 150k miles = Cam belt = engine out and strip down job = £1000+ = scrap car or just run it till the belt fails. So in 2 or so years time this will be an issue and word will get around that 10/9/8 year old Ecoboost Fiesta's are worthless. It's going to wreck the resale value of Ecoboost Fiesta and that's going to ripple back up the resale chain to 3 year old cars. Then what are the fleet buyers gong to say?
It is Hydraulic and it seems that it may be the slave cylinder thats inside the bell housing and as Peter says its clutch out etc.
Been quoted by a local small garage we use as 3 to 400 quid!
Saw late last night a vid on Youtube bloke there specialises in them and it takes around an hour to do mind you he has everything to hand inc some power drivers that just whip the bolts and screws etc apart!
And yes it does have a combined cylinder. It seems earlier ones did have cable operated clutches..
Interesting on what you say re EV's suppose the battery's going to be the main concern but i bet someone will say;
You need a new charge/ motor management system module guv!, best price will be around £1000 odd;!!..
Offside front motor will be £???, anyone's guess i suppose?..
My limited experience of this type of slave cylinder is the pedal starts to sink and there's wet patch under the bell housing.
If there is literally no clutch, the fluid level stays high and there is no leak I would first suspect the master cylinder before any major dismantling.
All done now that was the slave cylinder fortunately it didn't damage the clutch plate with fluid so we've decided to just change the cylinder and seems fine.
I recall replacing brake shoes on a relative's car. It was for a Ford Escort Mk3/4. The rear shoes were designed to be different thicknesses as the wear rate for leading and trailing shoes would be different.
2 months later they had it serviced with an MOT. Guess what they changed?
The garage owner had taken on a second mechanic. When he got the new shoes the lack of wear would have been apparent, but still he changed them and charged full wack for the privilege. This is after my relative had been a patron of this garage for many years.
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